Modern Confucian arguments

things themselves, which are the manifestations and the operations of the substance.

Xiong calls it original substance, or the fabric of the universe. He has found a mention of it already in the Book of changes, where it is called the Great Ultimate (Taiji). Thus, substance for Xiong can be summarized as follows: 1) omniscient, all-powerful, the moving principle of all becoming, supremely good and pure; 2) absolute, without relation, without contradiction, without causal connection; 3) mysterious and invisible, that is, without concrete appearance (without spatial dimension); eternal, without a beginning and end (without a temporal dimension); 4) perfect, complete in itself, without defects, without deficiency, indivisible; 5) eternally in motion, in transformation, its functions changing, the myriad of manifestations; 6) but as substance, it never loses its absoluteness, purity, goodness, and immobility.

Xiong's ontology takes the substance-function relationship as its center.

Substance means the original fabric of the universe, and function is the universal operation of substance. Substance manifests itself through its operations. This is also to say that the original substance of the universe manifests itself through phenomena;

being manifests itself through becoming. Since becoming is change, then cosmic reality is unceasing becoming, unceasing change and transformation. Therefore, since becoming is an unceasing function of being, becoming is nothing else but being.

There is not a reality distinct from God, becoming and being are not two separate realities, and substance is at the same time impermanent and permanent.⁴²² According to Xiong’s ontology, then, a reality distinct from God does not exist, since the world is one, and all differences are only the manifestations of functions of the same substance. In this aspect, different from classic Christian theology, Xiong has his own monistic understanding concerning the created human beings. It is, therefore, difficult for Christians to develop a dialogue with Xiong.

4.1.3 Modern Confucian arguments

1) Modern Christian Confucian arguments

422 Cf., Bresciani 2001, 126.

created humanity and its status

Among Modern Confucians, Modern Christian Confucians have defended all five points of the classic Christian doctrine of creation;⁴²³ but the most discussed topic is the existence of a creator in the Chinese traditions. The sources, from which they have acquired information upon which to base their conclusions, are mainly the Five Classics of pre-Confucian times (before 479 BC). Occasionally later materials are also employed.⁴²⁴

He Shiming 何世明 (1909-1991) was one of those who clearly argued that Heaven is the creator of all things including human beings. His arguments are mainly based on quotations from the Five Classics. For example, from Yijing . Qiangua,⁴²⁵ Shijing . Tiuanzuo,⁴²⁶and Shijing . Zhengmin,⁴²⁷ he is of the opinion that Shangdi or Tian is the creator of all things. ⁴²⁸

In a different way from He Shiming, Yuan Zhiming considered the Dao as the creator.⁴²⁹ Yuan noticed that there is no such a term “creation” or “to create” in the book of Laozi, but he has employed several terms, which Lao Zi used to describe the Dao to prove that the Dao is the creator.⁴³⁰ These terms are “mother”,⁴³¹

423 They are: a reality distinct from God exists; this reality is not axiomatic (ontologically or epistemologically), but rather is by virtue of the antecedent reality of God; God created the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo); God sustains the world; and the world moves towards its destination (telos) in the purpose of God.

424 Qian hanshu. Dong Zhongshu zhuan was also referred to, cf., He Shiming 1996 (2), 15-16.

425 "Vast is the 'great and originating (power)' indicated by Qian! All things owe to it their beginning: -- it contains all the meaning belonging to (the name) Heaven."

426 "Heaven made a lofty hill for former kings to till.”

427 "Heaven who made mankind endowed him with body and mind". This passage can also be translated as: "Heaven, in producing mankind, gave them their various faculties and relations with their specific laws."

428 The Neo-Confucians in the 16th and 17th centuries also discussed this topic. This argument can also be supported by Sinological research; for example, Nikkilä 1982, 204-205: According to Shijing Tian created both the natural world and the people in it with their bodies and moral regulations. 206 reads: "Both [Shujing and Shijing] share the view that there was a beginning to everything, a kind of starting point, and that a kind of creation had taken place. In Shu Ching [Shujing], the kings were the authors of this creative activity, whereas according to Shih Ching [Shijing] Heaven was the author of creation."

429 Yuan 1997, 91-116. See also Huang 2002, 75-88. Since Daoism is also an important part of Neo-Confucianism, and such a fact has also influenced Modern Neo-Confucianism, I am hereby also discussing Yuan Zhiming’s ideas on the relationship between Christianity and the Daoist classic Laozi.

430 Yuan 1997, 92.

431 In the book of Laozi the Dao has been called “mother of all things” (1:2), “mother of heaven and earth” (25:3), “mother of those under heavens” (52:1), “returning to hold its mother” (52:3), and Lao Zi says that the only difference between him and other people is that he values the nursing-mother (i.e., the Dao)” (20:7).

4. Confucian ideas of the object of salvation in Christianity:

created humanity and its status

“ancestor”,⁴³² “female vagina”⁴³³ and “root”.⁴³⁴ Yuan mentions also that in the Bible God has been called “mother”,⁴³⁵ and Lao Zi also calls the Dao “father”.⁴³⁶ Although God is usually called Father by Christians, it is called Mother in the Laozi. Yuan traces this difference to cultural customs, but he does not offer detailed evidence to show how cultural customs have led to such a difference.⁴³⁷ In the end of his argument, Yuan quotes Acts 17:26 to say that all people are created by God, and the Dao has created every one of us.⁴³⁸

In order to show how the world was created, Yuan makes a contrast between chapter 25 of the Laozi and Genesis 1:1-3 by pointing out six issues as follows: 1) The time “before heaven and earth” in the Laozi is “the beginning” when “God created heavens and earth” in Genesis. 2) The “something undefined and complete”

in the Laozi is “God”, who was in the beginning of Genesis, and this God was also called Logos, which has been translated as “Word” in English and “Dao” in Chinese (John 1:1-2). 3) Lao Zi’s description of the Dao “how still it was and formless” is the same as the description “a formless void and darkness” in Genesis. 4) The description of the Dao as “standing alone, undergoing no change, reaching everywhere” is the same as the description of how “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”. 5) Lao Zi says that the Dao “may be regarded as the mother of all things” and confesses that he does not know its name. The author of Genesis goes on to tell about the process of God’s creation. 6) Concerning the process of creation, Yuan compares the verb “to create” in Genesis and “to give birth” in the Laozi, since these two terms may lead people to believe that Genesis and the Laozi are different in respect to creation. Yuan says the Bible also employs the verb “to give birth” to describe God’s

432 The Laozi 4:1 reads: ”The Dao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the honoured ancestor of all things””

433 The Laozi 6:1 reads: ”The valley spirit dies not, aye the same; The female vagina thus do we name.”

434 The Laozi 6:2 reads: ”The gate of female vagina, from which at first they issued forth, is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.”

435 Psalm 131:2 reads: ”But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

436 The Laozi 21:4 reads: ”Its name does not pass away, and to be called the father of everyone.”

437 Yuan 1997, 93. I mentioned earlier, Yang Tingyun called God as the Great Father-Mother. Cf., Standaert 1988, chapter 1 "Yang Tingyun's thought: A) Heaven."

438 Yuan 1997, 93.

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creative work, e.g., Acts 17:28-29. He considers the different usage of these two terms as a cultural difference, which does not result in any theological difference.⁴³⁹

Yuan interprets 42:1 of the Laozi via an understanding of the Trinity in Christianity.⁴⁴⁰ Concerning the source of creation, Lao Zi says that all things under heaven have their originator (52:1), (conceived of as) having no name and wu is the originator of heaven and earth (1:2). Yuan employs the Big Bang theory to argue that the universe began from a single point, which is a mystery that science cannot yet explain. He thinks that Lao Zi has explained this mysterious point already over two thousand years ago by saying: “All things under heaven sprang from it as existing (and named); that existence sprang from it as non-existent (and not named) (40:2). At the end of his argument Yuan agrees with Lao Zi that you and wu are two different expressions referring to the same thing, which has been expressed by Lao Zi in the following words: “Under these two aspects,⁴⁴¹ it is really same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful” (1:4).⁴⁴² In fact, it is an important general doctrine of Christianity that God created the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), and Yuan has not produced much of a contrast to this point.

Concerning creation Yuan has pointed out four things: 1) The Dao has created the universe and is called as the mother of all things; 2) The Dao gives birth to all things; 3) One, Two, and Three are the essence, name and image of the Dao; and 4) you and wu are the same mystery from which the universe was born.

2) Boston Confucian arguments

The Boston Confucian stance to the Christian doctrine of creation can be found in Robert Neville’s understanding of creation and creativity in Confucianism. Neville says in the West there are two different understandings concerning God the creator.

One is theism, according to which it is assumed that God is an independent entity

439 Yuan 1997, 94-95.

440 Yuan 1997, 97.

441 ”Having no name” and ”having a name”, ”Being” and Being”, or ”Existence” and ”Non-Existence”.

442 Yuan 1997a, 98.

4. Confucian ideas of the object of salvation in Christianity:

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creating the world out of nothing. Another is mysticism, which supposes that God is not an entity but the formless abyss out of which the world is created.⁴⁴³

According to Nevillethe possible reason creatio ex nihilo never struck a spark in Chinese religious philosophy is that it seems to require the concept of a transcendent creator. Unlike the Western tradition’s stress on the transcendence of the creator of all being, the Chinese tradition emphasizes the immanence of the vertical dimension within process. Never in China did the idea of creatio ex nihilo develop in ways comparable to its theistic use in Europe.⁴⁴⁴

On the one hand, Neville says the Chinese tradition has had no taste for anything determinately transcendent of the world. Neville admits the existence of transcendence in China, but he understands transcendence as “defining the self".

Neville argues, in fact, that in the Chinese tradition the world is not considered as a product of an external creative act. Concerning Neville's viewpoint on transcendence, one should bear in mind that his conclusion is arrived at on the basis of the Four Books, which are the Confucian primary scriptures of the post-Confucian tradition.

This tradition is different from that of the later Neo-Confucian.

On the other hand, in pre-Confucian times (before 479 BC) there was widespread belief in gods and goddesses, similar to the ancient Mesopotamian religions, where the king was viewed as a mirror-surrogate for a male heavenly ruling deity. But the imperial god of heaven was not consistently ontologized into a transcendent world creator who nevertheless remained a part of the world. This religious thinking finally developed into the more neutral notion of a cooperative divine principle with Earth, as in the Yijing (Book of changes) hexagrams. Therefore, in the tradition after Confucius, there has been a deep appreciation of the immanent definition of things, i.e. the definition of things in terms of their relations with one another, often dynamically interpreted as interactions of yin and yang.⁴⁴⁵

Neville has noted the difference between pre- and post-Confucian times in respect to the understanding of God as the creator. He has referred to Julia Ching's opinion that the transcendent sense of Shangdi (Sovereign on High) was never

443 Neville 1991, 73.

444 Neville 1991, 55-56.

445 Neville 1991, 73.

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entirely lost in Chinese religions, not even after the so-called secular humanism of Confucius.⁴⁴⁶ He has also criticized Hall and Ames, because they understand transcendence as a principle of explanation. Even based on the definition of Hall and Ames themselves, Neville claims their arguments cannot be warranted, since the Dao, Heaven and Earth, can be understood as transcendent.

What Neville tries to say is: the concepts "transcendence" and “immanence”

can mean many different things, and the immanence of Hall and Ames relates only to one of many connotations of the term. One cannot simply say that there is no

"transcendence" in Confucianism.⁴⁴⁷ However, Neville admits:

If what transcends is determinate being, like a god, then the main burden of Chinese thought is immanent whereas the theistic, though not the mystical nor Neo-Platonism, strains of Western thought are transcendent versus immanent definitions of things, however.⁴⁴⁸

In order to find an answer to the question whether there is an idea of a creator in China; Neville argues that, according to the category of ontological creativity, all definitions of things are immanent in the sense of being harmonies of relational conditional features and integral essential ones. No definition of a thing makes relational reference to a transcendent creator, and all things together are dependent on ontological creation for their very being, although what they are depends on their immanent context.

Summarizing Neville's understanding of creation and creativity in Confucianism, one may find that for him both the category of ontological creativity and the categories of the primary cosmology are illustrated by the Chinese philosophic-religious tradition. They are illustrated there perhaps even more clearly than in the Western traditions.⁴⁴⁹ Creativity is not an act making something out of nothing, as in the Western Hebrew-Platonic tradition.⁴⁵⁰ Ontological creativity is the original creatio ex nihilo. This is found in the insights of Lao Zi and several others,

446 Neville 1991, 174. Kung & Ching 1989, 61-91. This point was heavily stressed to its fullest extent by the Modern Christian Confucians as mentioned above.

447 Neville 1991, 73; Neville 2000, 150, 149. Hall & Ames 1987, 12-13.

448 Neville 1991, 73.

449 Neville 1991, 83.

450 Neville 1991, 54.

4. Confucian ideas of the object of salvation in Christianity:

created humanity and its status

but not in those of Confucius, and only barely in those of Zhu Xi. The issue here is not so much a metaphysical disagreement but a practical one: the Daoists prefer to return to the ontological depths by finding quietude and tranquility, and the Confucians tend to return to ontological depths by a special stance in the midst of action.⁴⁵¹

Thus, Boston Confucians have taken an affirmative attitude toward the Christian doctrine of creation. Nevertheless, they have tried their best to understand the similarities and differences between Confucianism and Christianity on this issue.

3) Mencian tradition Modern Confucian arguments

Du Weiming 杜维明 (1940-) has been an important figure among the Mencian tradition Modern Confucians.⁴⁵² He wants to defend Confucianism as a religion rather than as a philosophy. However, the modern Confucianism represented by Du obviously is something between a social philosophy and a religion. On the one hand, for Du human beings should seek harmony with nature and mutuality with Heaven on earth. On the other hand, concerning creation, Du says that human beings are Heaven's partners and indeed co-creators. Human beings are embedded in their human nature. Heaven is certainly omnipresent, may even be omniscient, but is most likely not omnipotent. It needs human beings’ active participation to realize its own truth.

Why is Heaven not omnipotent? What does Du mean by calling human beings co-creators of Heaven? Du has defined Confucian spirituality by focusing on its fundamental concern, learning to be human. This focus is not on the human in contrast with nature or with Heaven but on the human as seeking harmony with nature and mutuality with Heaven. Du says that through an ever-expanding network of relationships encompassing the family, community, nation, world, and beyond, a Confucian seeks to realize humanity in its all-embracing fullness. This process of inclusion helps deepen our self-knowledge simultaneously with a ceaseless effort to

451 Neville says that his own sense is: “the Confucians agree with the Taoists [Daoist] that authentic life requires returning to and recovering the depths of nature, and they variously disagree among themselves only with regard to how far down those depths reach.” See Neville 1991, 79.

452 Refer to section 2.3.3 in this study.

created humanity and its status

make our body healthy, our mind-and-heart alert, our soul pure, and our spirit brilliant. Self-cultivation is an end in itself and its primary purpose is self-realization.

Therefore, for Du, Confucians believe in the creative transformation of our human condition as a communal act and as a dialogical response to Heaven. This involves the integration of four dimensions of humanity: self, community, nature, and Heaven.⁴⁵³ The idea of human beings as Heaven's co-creator means the following four things:

1) Self as creative transformation: the Confucian insistence on learning for the sake of the self is predicated on the conviction that self-cultivation is an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Self-transformation, the result of self-cultivation, signifies a process of self-realization. Authentic self-transformation involves tapping spiritual resources from the cumulative symbolic tradition (culture), the sympathetic resonance of society, the vital energy of nature, and the creative power of Heaven.⁴⁵⁴

2) Community as a necessary vehicle for human flourishing: Du considers it a distinctive feature of the Confucian spiritual orientation that the human community is an integral part of our quest for self-realization. The significance of others for our self-cultivation is evident, since we rarely cultivate ourselves in isolation. It is through constant human interaction that we gradually learn to appreciate our selfhood as a transformative process.

Du has furthermore quoted from Daxue 大学 (the Great learning, Chapter 1) to indicate this viewpoint:

The ancients who wished to illuminate the "brilliant virtue" of all under Heaven first governed their states. Wishing to govern their states, they first regulated their families.

Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their personal lives. Wishing to cultivate their personal lives, they first rectified their hearts and minds. Wishing to rectify their hearts and minds, they first authenticated their intentions. Wishing to authenticate their intensions, they first refined their knowledge. The refinement of knowledge lay in the study of things. For only when things are studied is knowledge refined; only when knowledge is

Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their personal lives. Wishing to cultivate their personal lives, they first rectified their hearts and minds. Wishing to rectify their hearts and minds, they first authenticated their intentions. Wishing to authenticate their intensions, they first refined their knowledge. The refinement of knowledge lay in the study of things. For only when things are studied is knowledge refined; only when knowledge is

In document Confronting Confucian Understandings of the Christian Doctrine of Salvation : A systematic theological analysis of the basic problems in the Confucian-Christian dialogue (sivua 152-165)